McDonnell Douglas F-4N Phantom II of Marine fighter squadron VMFA-531 "Grey Ghosts" being readied for launch from a catapult aboard carrier with a full compliment of 500lb Mk82 bombs and air to air missiles during the Vietnam War. The green shirted catapult crewmen check the launch strops (Phantoms lacked a nose gear hookup to the catapult shuttle, and used heavy disposable cables called strops attached to the underside of the fuselage at the forward wing root) for proper connection while other crewmen look on. The yellow shirted catapult officers watch and wait to signal the pilot that the green shirts are done and clear, and to apply full throttle and prepare for launch. The blast deflector has already been raised behind the Phantom, and the nose gear oleo slightly extended to increase the wing's angle of attack on launch.

About this creation

Original unrendered LDD image of my F-4N Phantom II hooked up to a carrier catapult shuttle, with catapult crew and launch officers.

Thanks! I've re-edited this one a few times now as I get better with the software, and the other markings really compliment the tail insignia and make the image pop. Eventually I'll be happy enough with it to leave it alone.

Quoting Gabor Pauler
Justin, I can see that USA recently had really hard military budget cuts, if toddlers from kindergarten handle carrierborn fighters... ;-)
What about to shift to larger Technic figures?
But your Phantom is really classic and proportional. Thats why minifigs look so funny close to that :-)

It's built proportional to the width of the minifigures, not their height. As discussed before, the LEGO figures are far from height/width proportional, being more akin to Oompa-Loompas than human beings. Trying to make a model that is both faithful to the original subject and proportionally correct to the minfigs is therefore not physically possible, so one must decide on scaling to one dimension or the other. I typically choose width, because scaling to height may not allow a figure to fit inside. Unfortunately, this means that the end result is apparently a toddler ground crew...

The "Grey Ghosts" insignia is actually built into the model. I used 1x1x1 squares for the tails of the F-4's when I built them so I could allow for different markings to be added, before I started playing with Gimp again and re-learned how to photo edit. Ideally the model would have a base color on the tail for whatever squadron/markings were intended, and stickers/decals for the actual intricate markings.

Justin, I can see that USA recently had really hard military budget cuts, if toddlers from kindergarten handle carrierborn fighters... ;-)
What about to shift to larger Technic figures?
But your Phantom is really classic and proportional. Thats why minifigs look so funny close to that :-)